The Chronicles of Narnia Great Challenge
by Llama Lady Lily
Summary: MovieVerse. Caspian/Susan. Caspian misses Susan, and she misses him. Narnia's greatest test to date will require Caspian at his greatest strength. What can give them the power to face it? Deleted and recreated
1. Chapter 1

MovieVerse

**MovieVerse. I'm the first to admit I haven't read the books since I was about seven, so I hardly remember them. While watching the pairing on the film, I hated it… and now… plot bunny!**

**First Narnia fic. Play nicely please.**

Susan had never been one for crying. That had always been Lucy's thing – to get their mother's attention, for Peter's sympathy, for a hundred different reasons she might have started crying.

But not Susan. She had never liked to cry.

Yet here she was.

She supposed she should be happy. Her father had returned. Her mother had been crying much of this week, also, so happy to see her love again.

The War was not over, mind. Her father had been grievously injured, taking a bullet to the foot. He could not walk yet, but doctors were optimistic.

And there was no chance that he could be sent back to defend the Great country.

Yet Susan could hear the downstairs clock chime two in the morning, and she sat staring out her window, trying to be as quiet as possible as she cried, for if Lucy were to hear her, she would surely awaken.

Susan did not like being at home this holidays. It was but one week until Christmas, and now that she was sixteen, that meant a different party every evening, trying to find a suitable bachelor.

Yes, indeed, the worst thing about this was that she was getting old.

Peter had opted to continue his studies. Susan almost hated him sometimes, but knew it was for the benefit of the family.

But someone had to bring some money to the Pevencie home whilst Peter finished his high school education and moved to a tertiary learning for a further four years. And with six people in it, now with just one female wage (as Susan's mother worked in a munitions factory three blocks away), Susan must be married as soon as possible.

This of course meant, in order for her to have a spring wedding, Susan would have just one term of school left before she was sold off to the highest bidder. How tribal.

The Pevencies were in no way poor. Their father'd had some luck in the stock market some twenty years ago, before withdrawing his money quickly. They had almost tripled the amount put in, and it continued to grow. They were not battling at all. They could certainly maintain their standard of lifestyle on these savings for ten, perhaps twenty years. Susan did not see the pressing need to marry.

Susan had many an excuse to cry, but she did so for none of the above mentioned reasons – she was glad her father was home, but not so ecstatic as to cry about it. She did not particularly enjoy school as Peter and Lucy did, so missing a year and a half of it was not what had Susan so sad. It was not the thought of marriage, or having the need to provide for a family. She had always expected she would have to do so, and was well content with the prospect.

No, the reason that Susan cried on this winter evening was her love, and the fact that she would never see him again.

Three months. Caspian – King now – was also staring out his window. It had been three entire months. Three months, two days, nine hours and twelve minutes since he had seen her.

Of course, he had done what he was bid – taken care of what he could in Narnia. He had been King for three months tomorrow, and already Narnia was a sweeter place to be. Lands had been restored to many of their original owners – the animals – and many Telmarines had made the decision to either stay in Narnia and work alongside the Narnians, or move to England or America where they could begin new lives. The Narnians acknowledged Caspian as the King, and many of them were sure to voice any concerns they still had about the way Narnia would be run, and was being run. Caspian was glad of this, because it meant that his people… rather… subjects, had faith in him.

Most of the time he was fine. During the day, when he had tasks to occupy him, Caspian could fight this deep seeded feeling of depression. But in the evenings, once the banquet had been finished, his advisors had retreated to their own rooms, his lessons were over, and the lights of his candles had burned down, Caspian was out of excuses, out of tactics, and his memories consumed him.

They'd had a scarce month together. A month filled with secret rendezvous under the stars, discussing Narnia, memories, literature, friends, family, goals, aspirations, anything, everything. Queen Susan the Gentle had become his very dearest, most cherished friend, his closest confidant, and his secret love. She alone knew the deepest desires of his heart, save for one – her. The only secret between them had been his love for her, and in return, hers for him. He hadn't needed to tell her his fears, as she'd guessed many of them, and discovered the rest. There was nothing she didn't know about him the day she'd left.

And now he felt like a very different man. Before she'd left, he'd still felt like a boy, indeed, because he'd always been told that a boy became a man after his greatest test.

And he knew now that his greatest test had been losing her.

"Aslan, the Boy King," Trumpkin sighed.

"He is troubled," Aslan agreed, and made his way over to sit by the dwarf, looking more like a feline than any other time.

"You know what troubles him," Trumpkin implored.

"Yes, and that is what troubles me," Aslan shook his head. "He will always _be_ troubled unless it is remedied, and he alone holds to power to fix it."

"The horn?"

"The horn. But he won't use it, no, because he is not at his greatest need, and he knows it."

"But why does this trouble you?"

"Because Narnia will soon face a great test, and will soon be at a greater need than any other."

"How soon? How do you know? What kind of test? How can we-" Trumpkin began to bombard Aslan with questions.

"I cannot say, but soon… Soon Narnia will be very weak, and very vulnerable because their King is so, and this is when it shall strike. Narnia is at it's greatest need right now, Trumpkin. I have a task for you to complete…"

Trumpkin ghosted around the King's quarters. He'd been here before… in the daylight. He knew where Queen Susan's horn was kept – it was Caspian's greatest treasure. Carefully he opened the glass case that held Lucy's cordial, Peter's sword, Edmund's torch and Susan's horn and gently, and as silently as possible, he removed the horn from its pride of place in the centre, and ghosted back away, out into the night…

Caspian awoke to a sound he recalled vividly – the sound of his love's magic horn. Immediately he sprang from his four poster bed, ripping the curtains aside as he did so, and found his glass treasure cabinet closed, but evidently broken into – Susan's horn was missing.

Caspian threw himself out of his room, Peter's sword clutched in his hand.

"Rouse Aslan and Trumpkin! Who did you let in here? Who?" he insisted to the guard standing outside Caspian's door.

"No one! I beg, sire, no one!" he cowered. "I shall raise His Grace and His Grace immediately, sire. I shall! Allow me to prove myself!"

"Oh stop groveling! I am not my uncle! Do as I ask and be done with it!" Caspian said cuttingly. He was never so cruel to the guards, and regretted it the instant his friend ran from his post in the direction of Trumpkin's rooms.

Caspian bolted down the stairs in the other direction. He was attaching the sheath of Peter's sword to his belt, sword still inside. Once it was secured, he had reached the bottom of the flight of stairs, and he began to run across the courtyard, yelling at the guards to open the gate.

The horn had been sounded just once, but maybe if he were lucky, Caspian would be able to catch the offender who had touched his love's possessions.

Susan felt funny for a moment. Caspian's face swam before her tear filled eyes, and suddenly, there was a tug. Susan released a cry of surprise before she could stop it, and Lucy began to awake. She felt like she was being tugged now.

"Susan?" Lucy asked, rubbing her eyes and beginning to sit up in her bed. "Are you still awake?"

"Go… go back to sleep Lu," Susan said, trying and failing to keep her voice level. Something was wrong…

"Susan?" Lucy asked. "What is it?"

"You can't feel it?" Susan asked, wide eyed.

"Feel what?"

"I'm… I think… I think it's magic again, Lu. Don't you feel it?"

"No! Susan! You're going back to Narnia without me!"

"Quick, Lucy, take my hand!" Susan implored. She felt as though she was fading.

"No, it's not my time to go back yet… I thought Aslan said… perhaps he forgot something?" Lucy mused.

"Oh, Lucy," Susan was beginning to fade in front of Lucy's eyes now. She noticed that Susan was no longer wearing her night gown, but the dress she had worn the day they left Narnia.

"That's a beautiful colour on you, Susan!" Lucy said.

"Tell the boys! Don't tell mother or father!" Susan begged.

"Tell them what? How long do you think you'll be-" Lucy asked, but before she could finish her sentence, there was a flash, and Susan was no longer in the room.

"Gone," she muttered.


	2. Chapter 2

**Whoops. Disclaimer for entire story: NO, I am just fifteen, therefore, not C.S. Lewis. I am also female. So there. Not him, or Andrew Adamson. Clear? Don't own anything. At all. Not writing another disclaimer.**

Susan was falling now. Magic had never done this before. She was falling, falling, falling… She could see people, flashes of them as she fell, through time, through place, through country. Susan was falling.

And then suddenly she saw a ground. Green and lush and dark. It was night. And there was a mop of thick black hair, and Susan was hurtling towards it at an unimaginable pace. She was screaming, and she hadn't even noticed she was doing so. The head she had seen looked up, and Susan saw stars. She might be dreaming. Dear Lord… It was.

But before she could think, she was right there, falling, with just two feet left until impact, and he could see her, and she fell cleanly into his arms.

Susan was sure she was dreaming. It couldn't be. With time being so out – approximately ten English minutes to every Narnian month – _he_ was surely dead by now. It had been three months. Three agonizing English months that she'd had to come to grips with the fact that her love was long dead.

And yet here she sat. Perhaps an ancestor? The thirtieth in the line, perhaps.

"It can't be," she breathed, raising her outside hand to touch his face. The exact same face she had laid beneath the stars with every night for a month. Dreams were so cruel.

"No," he sighed. "No."

"I'm sorry," Susan sighed, attempting to disentangle herself. "You look like someone I knew such a long Narnian time ago."

"And you, madam, look so very like an incredible woman I knew not so long ago." They stared at one another once Susan gained her balance standing before him.

The accent was identical, his face the same, why, Susan had mended a shirt almost exactly the same as the one the look-alike wore now.

"I… It can't be, can it?" Susan said, tears welling in her eyes. "If you are Caspian the tenth, speak now, please. I beg you. If you allowed your Uncle to live scarce moments before Narnians were framed from treachery, speak. If you saved a young woman named Susan multiple times, speak. If your favourite colour is green, if you love poetry by Grorn the Dwarf, if your deepest fear is inadequacy, please, I beg you, I beg that you speak."

"What would you have me say, my Queen?" he asked. "I am all of these things."

"Oh, Caspian," Susan sighed, throwing herself into his embrace. "I've missed you so."

"And I you, Susan," he agreed in a whisper in her ear, closing his eyes. "It is so good to hold you in my arms once more."

"If only it would last," Susan sighed.

"I've prayed for this since the moment you left," Caspian revealed.

"I've dreamed about this since the moment we met," Susan cried.

"How long?" Caspian asked, his voice barely audible. There was no doubt in either mind that he wanted to know how long they could be together.

"I don't know," Susan whispered. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"Time seems to take ten times as long as before," he told her.

"How long have I been gone?" Susan asked. She hardly noticed that she had reverted to only talking about herself.

"Three months, two days, ten hours, seventeen minutes," he told her.

"Oh, Caspian," Susan sighed, squeezing him a little tighter.

"Now, now. What's this?" a sly, amused voice both Susan and Caspian knew quite well asked. They broke apart, blushing.

"Aslan!" Susan said, shocked.

"Lovely to have you back, dear," he commented, sounding very unlike Aslan indeed.

"Uh… it's… it's lovely to be back," Susan sighed. "Aslan…"

"I imagine you have some… questions," Aslan mused. They both nodded. "If it is okay with your majesties, I request that we move to a drier climate. The dew will soon settle."

"Of… of course," Caspian muttered. "My quarters, then?"

Resettling in Caspian's private rooms around the large table, he and Susan folded their hands and stared at Aslan, waiting for an explanation.

"Well?" Caspian asked, finally tiring of the silence.

"Well what? You haven't asked me a question," Aslan mocked.

"How about we begin with 'Why on _earth_ am I here'?" Susan asked, clearly exasperated. "Didn't you say I could never return, as I'd learned all I could from Narnia?"

"Oh my dear Susan, you may have learned all you can from Narnia, but Narnia still has much to learn from you."

"How long may she stay?" Caspian asked, his eyes wide. Susan noticed him shift his arms a little closer to hers.

"I cannot say. I cannot know. Susan may take one of two paths. There is a timer on one, and not on the other," Aslan told the pair.

"What is the time limit on the first?" Caspian begged.

"This I will not say. Do not spend your time fretting about how much you have left," Aslan said wisely. Both looked at their hands.

"Who summonsed me?" Susan asked, half thinking it would be adequate to just ask Caspian this question. She knew she was wrong, however, when Caspian turned expectantly to Aslan and tilted his head to the side.

"Yes, Aslan, I'd quite like to know that myself…" Caspian said. "Who found it necessary to sneak into the King's private quarters and steal his most treasured possession?"

"On my orders, it was Trumpkin," Aslan said, without a hint of shame.

"Of course," Caspian said, turning his head to look down, clearly thinking about Trumpkin's usefulness in the past, and how he had been silly to overlook him.

"You… you said… three months?" Susan said, trying to put the pieces of her arrival together.

"Yes," Caspian said. "I was so torn, thinking that you'd hardly been out of Narnia a matter of hours, while each day was a struggle for me. I thought you'd hardly had time to miss me."

"So how is it that it's been three months in England and Narnia at the same time?" Susan asked, turning to Aslan.

"Narnia must always have a King or Queen, Susan, and one of the duties of the leading monarch, and the leading monarch alone, is to determine the time."

"I do not understand you," Caspian said.

"You, Caspian, have been willing Narnia to an English time frame. You are the leading monarch in the land, so an English time frame we have been working with. The moment Peter stepped through the portal, Narnia's time slowed significantly."

"That's… impossible," Susan muttered.

"Four months ago, talking animals were impossible, trees did not dance, and my Uncle was set to be King for another fifty years. I have learned that nothing is impossible," Caspian grinned.

"If your majesties have no further questions…?" Aslan asked, making to leave.

"Wait!" Susan said quickly. "Why am I the only one to arrive? Why not Lucy or Edmund or Peter?"

"Because, Susan, in this time of need, Narnia does not need a magnificent High King such Peter, nor the kind heart your sister has been blessed with, nor Edmund's… tenacity. No, right now the only thing Narnia needs is strong King, and a gentle Queen."

And then, after that proclamation, he bounded out of the room.

Susan was blushing at the compliment before something clicked.

"Wait… Which time of need?"

"I was just wondering the same thing," Caspian said, staring at the door, as if willing Aslan back.

"If your majesty permits…?" a nervous voice said, knocking on the door and poking his head around.

"Enter," Caspian said, waving the man in. The guard posted outside Caspian's rooms. He stood at attention in front of the table.

"Master Trumpkin was not in his rooms, sire," he reported.

"We shall have to deal with him in the morning," Caspian sighed.

"Sire?"

"Never mind, Adrien. I thank you for your work this evening," Caspian said.

"It's an honor, sire, and honor," he insisted.

"Oh none of that!" Caspian insisted light heartedly.

"Oh, I should not be dallying with his majesty while I am on watch! Good evening sire, milady," he said, and then bowed to each in turn.

"That," Caspian began. "Is my night watch guard Adrien. Bold and brave as a lion when in combat, but never met a more meek creature when he stands before me."

"He did seem quite nervous," Susan commented with a smile.

"I should like to show you around the palace, Queen Susan, while it is not under attack, but it is quite dark," Caspian said gravely.

"That's okay. I should think I will still be here in the morning," she said quietly.

"I dearly hope so," he whispered, turning on his chair to face her. Susan, in turn, did the same. "It has been a very long three months, my Queen, while I thought I would never see you again. If you were to be sent to me for a matter of scarce hours before being whisked away during the night… it might be difficult for me to bear."

"And yet imagine what it has been like for me," Susan commented. "Here I was thinking I must attend silly balls and find a prospective husband. Here I was thinking that you had been long since dead."

Caspian noticed the tears in Susan's eyes, and raised a light hand to wipe her cheek.

"I hope you have not been crying like this," he commented.

"What else was I to do?" Susan asked, allowing her tears to fall just a moment before Caspian sensed it, and pulled her into his strong embrace once more.

"It's entirely improper of me to ask," Susan began. "But I have spent so many nights thinking I would never see you again. Might I share these quarters with you this evening?"

"I would be honored, my Queen," Caspian agreed.

"Oh, please, Caspian! My name is Susan!" she laughed.

"Susan, then," Caspian said. "I should think I will get the best nights sleep of all my eighteen years if I am sure I can wake up and know that you will be beside me."

"Mother would be horrified," Susan giggled, removing herself from Caspian's arms. "And quite frankly, I don't care!"

"Susan, what's all this business about a husband?" Caspian asked, looking like a curious child.

"Oh," Susan said, looking troubled.

"You've acquired a suitor?" Caspian asked.

"Hardly!" Susan defended. "Mother has been intent on finding me one, but to no avail."

"Why ever not? Not that I'm complaining, but you're a very appropriate dinner guest, and quite beautiful," Caspian indulged her. "Any man should be lucky to dine with you."

"That is what many a man have said after our evenings together," Susan sighed. "There was simply no… chemistry."

"Bless you," Caspian said.

"Chemistry? Oh of course… it's still the Stone Age here... There was no magic," Susan explained.

"And you would know this… chemistry," Caspian said, leaning towards Susan, struggling with the foreign word. "If you saw it?"

"Yes," she said, also leaning towards him. "Well, no. You can't see it, but… you can feel it. In your bones."

"I would imagine, Susan," Caspian whispered. "That there is some chemistry in this room."

"Then, Caspian," she whispered back. "You would imagine correctly."

Caspian put his hand on Susan's cheek gently, as her eyes fluttered closed. "I don't know a lot about this chemistry, but I think I could very much like it." And without further ado, he placed a careful kiss on the side of her mouth.

"I never was one for the sciences," Susan giggled. "I'm rethinking it."


End file.
